Category Archives: Temple

10.12.11
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Temple and the Big East

Waltter Washington was the last
Big East offensive player of year
from Temple. If the Owls are in
the Big East next year,
Bernard Pierce could be.

If  Temple football players are thinking the same thing Temple football fans have been thinking the last few days, you’ve got to like Buffalo’s chances of upsetting the Owls on Saturday.
Fortunately, it doesn’t work that way.
Or at least it is not supposed to work that way.
Over a three-day period, I received 14 emails from fans asking me what I thought about Temple going to the Big East and none (zero) about what I’m thinking about Saturday’s Homecoming Day with  Buffalo.
That’s a three-day record for Temple Football Forever emails.
My response to each one is that I’m not counting the chickens before they are hatched.

I know Villanova is doing its darndest to keep the Owls out. Since Pitt and Syracuse left largely BECAUSE Villanova was being considered as a football member, I can’t see that the Big East would be dumb enough to listen to anything that comes out of Radnor

Yeah, it is an exciting prospect, no doubt.
I’m more focused on the MAC.
Long before Temple was ever in the MAC, I was a MAC football fan. Long after Temple football leaves the MAC, I will remain a MAC football fan. I love the teams and the schools and the fans.
Heck, in the middle of the newsroom while watching MAC football about 10 years ago on a Thursday night on ESPN, I exclaimed:
“MAC football, I love it,” I said.
“I hear you, bro,” one of my fellow sportswriters said.
MAC football on Thursday nights on ESPN was a staple to me.
You couldn’t put on anything better than that, watching Big Ben play with Miami or some of those Northern Illinois teams (one that beat Alabama).
What I’m not a fan of is the way the conference is run.
I can’t respect a conference that “rewards” its three best teams trips to Detroit, Boise and Mobile.
I can’t respect a conference that is so impotent that it can’t lobby behind the scenes to get an 8-4 team into some kind of at-large bowl.
The Big East, for all its perceived faults, has terrific bowl tie-ins and enough clout to get any 8-4 team into most bowls.
Since it hasn’t “officially” happened (heck, it might have happened in the last five minutes for all I know), I’m not going to get excited about it. According to reports in two out-of-town newspapers, Villanova has been bad-mouthing Temple for three days of Big East conference calls, demanding that the Owls not get in for all sports. I know Villanova is doing its darndest to keep the Owls out. Since Pitt and Syracuse left largely BECAUSE Villanova was being considered as a football member, I can’t see that the Big East would be dumb enough to listen to anything that comes out of Radnor.

Villanova’s contribution to the conference call.

But Dumb with a Capital D has been the Big East’s middle name for about a decade so I would not be surprised.
My guess is that Temple is already in because the Owls have upgraded their football program significantly and would bring both the highest profile basketball program and largest available market into the mix with documented TV ratings success in their portfolio.
Wake me up when the ink is dry, though.
What I’m going to do is get excited about the Homecoming Day game with Buffalo this Saturday, hopeful for a big crowd (that could not hurt the Big East prospects if the ink isn’t dry by then) and focus on Temple beating Buffalo and winning the MAC.
We all know what happened the last time this team got full of themselves and unfocused. They got their heads handed to them by Toledo.
I don’t want that happening again.
I have a feeling that’s the message Steve Addazio is trying to drive home at The Edberg-Olson Football Complex.
Whether the team hears it or not, we should know by 4 p.m. on Saturday.
We’ll know about the Big East soon enough.
I’m just glad I never ripped that Big East logo off the Temple football game jersey I’ll be wearing on Saturday.

10.08.11
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Addazio goes for the Golden Hat Trick

Al Golden took his 0-14 record in the MAC south of the (Mason-Dixon) border.

With the Phillies finally done and the Eagles at 1-3 and no NBA and NHL not meaning squat until April, Temple football finally forges its way front and center into the consciousness of Philadelphia sports fans

The Golden Sombrero is a term loosely credited to ESPN announcer Chris Berman for describing a guy who goes 0 for 4 in baseball with four strikeouts.
It was a supposed to be a takeoff on the term “hat trick” when someone scores three goals in a game but does something ignominious instead.
So when The Golden Sombrero fits, wear it.
Today, first-year Temple coach Steve Addazio doesn’t go for the Golden Sombrero but the Golden Hat Trick.
Or, more precisely, The Al Golden Hat Trick.
Golden was not able to blow out Villanova.
Addazio was.
Check.
Golden was not able to beat an ACC team.
Addazio was.
Check.
If Addazio beats 3-2 Ball State today (2 p.m.. in Muncie, Ind.), Addazio will stop an ignominious Golden run of 0-14 against winning MAC teams. If Addazio (and Temple, of course) beats Ball State today, he will be 1-0 against winning MAC teams vs. Golden’s 0-14. That’s if Ball State finishes with a winning record, of course. (Before you get on me about Toledo, the Rockets were 1-3 coming into the Temple game.)
Can’t put the check mark next to that one yet, because it hasn’t happened for Addazio yet but that’s a mark that will haunt Golden the rest of his life.
Think about it.

Watch the Temple-Ball State game live here on your computer

Golden recruited four straight No. 1-ranked recruiting classes in the MAC with one No. 2 and could never beat a winning MAC team.
I’ve got to make only one conclusion from that: Poor game day coaching.
So good game day coaching is the way to end that streak.
That means hand the ball off to The Franchise (Bernard Pierce) and not strictly off-tackle like Addazio did last week. Get the ball in space to a great football player who messed around one spring with track and became a world-class sprinter in his spare time. It also means finding someone who can take advantage of the pressure Pierce puts on defenses by being able to complete a simple forward pass 20 yards or more  downfield.
Do that and keep the defense off the field. Keep the defense off the field and it will produce the times it is needed on the field.
This could be the start of a good Temple football run.
With the Phillies finally done and the Eagles at 1-3 and no NBA and NHL not meaning squat until April, Temple football finally forges its way front and center into the consciousness of Philadelphia sports fans.
Hey, I can dream, can’t I?
I was doing a lot of dreaming until seven days ago when Toledo’s football team woke me rather rudely from a dopamine-induced slumber.
All week after the 38-7 win over Maryland, I was kicking myself.
“Geez, we’re going to go 11-1 now and not being able to stop Penn State on a fourth-and-one is going to cost us a shot at the national championship. Could you imagine Temple winning the national championship? Temple? How great would that be?”
If allowed myself that thought one time last week, it must have been 100 times I repeated it in my head.
I thought Penn State was far and away the best team on the schedule and Maryland was a close second.
Logically, Temple could have run the table.
Logic and sports don’t always mix, though.
Ask the Phillies who, on Sept. 10, had a 94-48 record, the same day the Cardinals had a 78-67 record.
Or ask Al Golden about all those No. 1 recruiting classes adding up to an 0-14 record.
That did not compute, either.

09.21.11
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Penn State fans and over-reaction

Proof positive that Temple fans outnumbered PSU fans on Saturday.

There must be a severe disconnect between Penn State fans and Penn State players.
To read the reaction on web sites like “Blue White Illustrated” and “Black Shoe Diaries” beating Temple “only by 14-10” was pretty darn close to the Apocalypse coming to State College.
Almost no one gave Temple any credit for being a good team.
Almost everyone says this means Penn State is no good.
Twenty-five years of building a ram shack house that was once the Temple program destroyed the brand name and it is going to take more than two years of winning for a home makeover.
Still, if you watch college football these days, teams that don’t have “brand names” are beating teams with brand names.

Photos by friend of TFF, Tony Alessi

Someday, maybe Saturday at Maryland, that will happen for Temple.
It could possibly be Temple’s last chance this year. If Temple doesn’t beat Maryland and run the table, even if it wins the MAC, it is likely to be in a bowl game with another “brand less” team, say Troy. An 11-1 mark is probably enough to break Temple out of MAC bowl hell and into some kind of Heavenly bowl. An 11-1 record with Maryland winning the ACC and Penn State winning the Big 10 and that bowl becomes even more attractive.

An 11-1 mark is probably enough to break Temple out of MAC bowl hell and into some kind of Heavenly bowl

Penn State fans are over-reacting, just like UConn fans over-reacted after losing to Temple last year.
All you read on the Uconn message boards were “we won’t win another game” and “I can’t believe we lost to Temple” yet UConn went on to beat Pitt and West Virginia and win the Big East after that.
In a story about Kevin Kroboth by Brad Wilson in the Easton Express-Times on Sunday one of the comments below said: “Temple is much improved, but shows Penn Sate is going downhill.”

Temple football fact:
Owls are 15-0 when Bernard Pierce
gets 16 or more carries


That kind of thought process is really disrespectful to Temple’s kids.
Penn State’s kids know better. “We beat a great football team,” Rob Bolden said. Mike Mauti, who is a great player, said: “To come back and beat a team this good and we knew they were good coming in is a sign of what team we can be.” (Ironically, Mike Mauti is Rich Mauti’s kid and Rich Mauti beat Temple with a punt return in the final minute of PSU’s 26-25 win at Temple in 1975.)
When you are out there knocking heads, you know a lot more about the program you are playing and the kids on the other side of the ball that some fan on a message board.
Al Golden recruited well and got a lot of three- and four-star recruits. His good looks and dogged personality opened a lot of doors for Temple that previously had been closed. That kind of talent showed enough to stay with PSU.
PSU will be fine, as UConn was fine after running into Temple.
PSU is going to beat Eastern Michigan, 44-7, or thereabouts. You can write that score down now. It won’t be anywhere near 14-10.
Temple will be fine if it can somehow rebound from this psychological devastation and get a signature win at Maryland this Saturday.
Maybe both PSU and Temple fans will feel a lot better at 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon.
For the sake of the two best college football teams in Pennsylvania, I hope so.

09.15.11
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PSU: Temple’s biggest game ever

The field is ready and the nation will be watching the Owls on Saturday.

Let’s face it.
No matter what happens this year, Penn State is probably going to go to some nice, warm-weather, bowl game.

“We had over 30,000 some Temple fans for our game against Villanova, including 10,000 students. I don’t know how many Temple fans we will have Saturday, but it certainly won’t be any less than that.’
_ Steve Addazio

The best Temple can hope for, even if it jumps over the two or three teams ranked ahead of it (Toledo, Northern Illinois and maybe Ohio) and wins the MAC is Detroit.
Or Boise.
Or, in the best-case scenario, Mobile, Ala.
That’s life in the MAC these days.
On Saturday, Temple plays Penn State in the national (not regional) game on ESPN.
The Owls will be playing in their own hometown in front of roughly a split crowd (which is an improvement on all other Penn State games of my lifetime, with the exception of the 1975 game at Franklin Field).
“We had over 30-thousand some Temple fans for our game against Villanova, including 10,000 students,” Temple head coach Steve Addazio said. “I don’t know how many Temple fans we will have Saturday, but it certainly won’t be any less than that.”
Temple won’t be in a better bowl game this season unless it beats Penn State, Maryland and Toledo in a row and then finishes the season by running the table.
The bowl game in Washington D.C. in a half-empty and freezing RFK was nice, but it is not this.
A win over a 6-5 Cal team in the Garden State Bowl was nice, but it was not this.
Seventy-thousand people and a national TV audience is a chance for this program to make its mark nationally.
Maybe its only chance.
This time, a win is well within the realm of reality.
Temple beat UConn by two touchdowns last year and UConn found itself in the Fiesta Bowl.
Two years ago, without a quarterback, Temple handed a 10-2 Navy team a 28-24 loss on the road. That Navy team beat Missouri, 35-14, in its bowl game.
So it’s not as if this program hasn’t done some impressive things in the last two years.
Temple won eight games last year and nine games the year before and just about every Temple fan will tell you that this team is better than those two teams.
This is a chance for the Owls to show it on the biggest stage and in front of the most people who will ever watch them play.
A lot of kids play football their whole lives and never get a chance like this. These Owls are only a few hours away from getting their shot.

06.23.11
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Their perception versus our reality


Steve Addazio talks Temple football on ESPN Wednesday.

Perception versus reality.
You hear the concept all the time.
I like to read what other people think about Temple football, both the experts in the field and those with lesser knowledge in the stands.
If one theme has carried the day for the past six months or so, it’s this:
“Temple has lost Al Golden. The Owls will take a step back.”
That’s THEIR perception and the perception of most of the country.
Whoa, Nellie, as that great college football philosopher Keith Jackson used to say.
OUR reality, at least those enough close to the program with knowledge to comment is this:
“Temple has 19 starters back from teams that went 9-3 and 8-4. The Owls have potential legendary caliber coordinators in Chuck Heater and Scot Loeffler. They have a motivator in CEO Steve Addazio who would put even Al Golden’s considerable ability in that area to shame. The Owls are not taking a step back.”
I’m a lot more comfortable in the second statement than the first.
Father forgive that first group because they do not know of what they speak.
They will find out soon enough.
Addazio went on ESPN today and tried to break down the perception and I think he did a pretty good job of that.

“We really feel that Temple can be the Boise of the East…”
_Steve Addazio

People will believe what they want to believe but facts are facts.
The Temple media guide will list 13 returning starters but when you break down the game sheet, ESPN got it right. Nineteen (that’s right, 19) guys who started at least six games return.


Going to http://www.owlstix.com/ is the only
way to guarantee seats for the PSU game.


Add in the fact that guys like Bernard Pierce will play more (please, God) then they did last year and this is a formidable group that Addazio and a battle-tested SEC and national championship staff go to war with on Sept. 1.
As one father of an offensive lineman told me on Cherry and White Day:
“Mike, these guys are from the SEC. My kid told me, ‘Dad, these guys really know what they are doing.’ When these MAC coaches try to go up against them, their heads will be spinning. They won’t be able to deal with it.”
I have a lot of respect for Villanova coach Andy Talley, but I feel sorry for him (just him, not Villanova) on Sept. 1.
It should be fun to watch beginning in just 72 nights. Hopefully, that night will be the beginning of a dozen dates that change the perception of Temple football everywhere.

04.30.11
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(Fellow) Eagles’ fans are in for a treat

Jarrett’s hit at 0:23 of this video is the greatest I’ve ever seen, high school, college or pro.

My weekends are pretty much set around a Temple game in person on Saturday and an Eagles’ game by the TV on Sunday.
Those two days seem to go by in like five minutes.
That’s why I could not be happier for my main man Jaiquawn Jarrett today after the Eagles selected him in the second round.
Or myself.
As a Temple fan, I am going to miss him leaving the family.
As an Eagles’ fan, I’m going to adopt him as my favorite player.
The Eagles have missed that hard-hitting safety since Brian Dawkins left. They haven’t had anybody who could bring the wood since.

I really believe UConn lost its will to win after that hit. The Huskies did not want to get hit from that spot in the game forward.


Jarrett, to me, is a younger, faster, version of Brian Dawkins.

I said that all season. It wasn’t surprising that Andy Reid said that at the press conference. Reid said a lot of other nice things about Temple, calling the school “an educational Mecca” and saying “that program is really rolling now.”
I think the way it will eventually shake down is that Nate Allen will be a starting free safety (he’s more of a floater-type cover guy anyway) and Jarrett will be moved to strong safety, where his primary cover responsibility will be tight ends.
He will do more than fine there.

“Temple is an educational Mecca”
_Andy Reid


His hit of Jordan Todman, a great back from UConn, in the above video is the single greatest hit I’ve ever seen. You get a flavor for it from the video, but you really had to be there to hear and see it in person and experience the crowd’s awe-struck reaction afterward.
I really believe UConn lost its will to win after that hit. The Huskies did not want to get hit from that spot in the game forward.
That’s what Jarrett brings to the game.
It is somewhat consoling to know that I will still see it on my weekends, albeit the second half this year.

04.29.11
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Muhammad Wilkerson: Temple Royalty

Big Mo makes that Temple helmet look real good.

“I’ll represent Temple strong. I’m always going to represent the Temple team and show that Temple can continue to produce elite athletes for the next level.”
_ Mo Wilkerson

The only place you’ll find me at 4 a.m. on any morning is deep in dreamland.
I won’t be getting up to watch the Royal Wedding tomorrow.
However, if the NFL draft was being held at 4 a.m. and a Temple player was certain to be picked in the first round, I would be up for that.
Muhammad Wilkerson proves that if you sign a scholarship at Temple and are good enough, you will be fast-tracked to “the league.” You will be playing in an NFL stadium in front of an NFL coach and general manager whose kid plays on the same team you do.


Mike Pouncey gets some love from Steve Addazio. Would
have been nice to see Al Golden or Mark D’Onofrio return
the favor for Muhammad Wilkerson.


To me, Muhammad Wilkerson is Temple Royalty. He is the only non-BCS player who will be picked in the first round. Let that thought swirl around in your head just a little bit.
Like a Solar Eclipse, those kind of things don’t come around often.
(Although I expect that they will happen moreso if Steve Addazio lives up to his reputation as a recruiter.)

Fortunately, neither you nor I will have to lose any sleep over this first-round pick. He made “the league” after only two years at Temple.
It’s hard to hide playing from the NFL when you are playing in one of their stadiums.
Having had the pleasure of watching Big Mo for the last two years, I know he will make an impact right away at either the defensive end or defensive tackle position.
There are plenty of DE/DT types who excel at one thing and not at another. Corey Simon was a great run-stopper, not so great at rushing the passer. Trent Cole is great at rushing the passer, not so good at stopping the run.
Wilkerson is great at both things. Plus, with basketball leaping ability at 6-foot-5, he’ll knock down more passes than just about anyone else. He’s got interchangable skills at both DE and DT and that’s got to make him valauble in a sport that has so many injuries.
Plus, he’s a terrific human being.
We at Temple know that.
On Sundays, due to the lockout maybe not this fall but certainly not too far into the future, all the football fans in America will soon find that out.

04.14.11
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Cherry and White kickoff now at 10 a.m.

… Due to work and other time constraints, Cherry and White report will appear around noon on Sunday … Go Owls …. and go T helmets (that means leave)….

Chester Stewart has drawn high praise from Steve Addazio recently.


Rain coming in earlier than expected (2 p.m.). Kudos to Temple for changing time of kickoff to 10 a.m.

Every so often, people ask me about the Temple gear I rock.
When it comes to Temple, there are few people who represent as well as I do.
Always the Temple hat, always in the gym with the Temple T-shirts and about once a week with my official Penn State game worn Al Golden Sweatshirt, circa 2008.
“Mike, where’d you get that?” someone will ask.
Invariably, with the exception of Al Golden sweatshirt (Patti Hagel in Temple athletics sold that to me), I will tell them four words:
“Cherry and White Day.”
“Sweet,” they’ll say.
Then I always invite them to c’mon down.
You can get more good Temple stuff on the cheap at Cherry and White Day than all of the 364 other days put together.
It’s sold right there.
Last year, I got a sweet cherry-colored Temple-UCLA Official Eagle Bank Bowl T-Shirt for $10.
You can get official game jerseys for $20.
Just bring cash.
That’s my No. 1 priority every Cherry and White Day.
As far as the game itself, call me Allen Iverson.
“We’re talking about practice.”
Any way you slice it, Cherry and White Day is still practice.
A glorified practice, a necessary practice, but still practice.
I go, though, because I enjoy everything about Temple football.
I enjoy talking Temple football to my friends.
I enjoy watching Temple football players.
I enjoy watching how coaches coach.
And I buy Temple stuff because I can’t get it at Kohl’s or Walmart.
So this is the one “practice” I make every year.
Not much to take away from the football end of this endeavor, though.
Last year, Chester Stewart looked like the best quarterback in the program on Cherry and White Day.
On game days in the fall, not so much.
I had enough of Chester Stewart, probably forever, after a putrid performance at Penn State when he threw three interceptions that, if I didn’t know any better, I could swear he thought those PSU guys were wearing White jerseys and not Blue ones.
It took Al Golden a little longer to reach his tolerance level.
Too long.

Adam DiMichele was an OK practice quarterback who lived for a pass rush. I never saw a kid duck out of one so courageously and make positive plays after positive plays in the middle of a tornado like DiMichele did. The damn kid was freaking Houdini


Once he did, though, the Owls got back on track, survived a huge scare against Bowling Green and then beat Buffalo (42-0) and Kent State (28-10) largely due to poised, if not spectacular, performances from Mike Gerardi.
This year, who the bleep knows?
Mike McGann was a great practice quarterback who crumbled under a pass rush. Ditto for Vaughn Charlton and, IMHO, Stewart.
To be a great quarterback in college football these days, the pass rush must not fluster you. Bother, yes. Fluster, no.
Adam DiMichele was an OK practice quarterback who lived for a pass rush. I never saw a kid duck out of one so courageously and make positive plays after positive plays in the middle of a  tornado like DiMichele did. The damn kid was freaking Houdini. The more clutch the situation, the more clutch the play. How about the game-winning touchdown pass to Steve Manieri in the rain against Ohio on national TV? Or the should-have-been game-winning drive at Buffalo with 38 seconds left? Or the six touchdown passes against Eastern Michigan?
Will I get to see the next Adam DiMichele on Saturday?
Probably not.
We’ll have to wait until Villanova.
Hopefully, Steve Addazio and Scot Loeffler will pick the right guy.
Al Golden did a great job in just about every area of his tenure but in picking a quarterback post-DiMichele he was a huge failure. His whole offensive scheme was out of whack without DiMichele.
Addazio needs to get this right.
He needs to find someone with the “it” factor. Addazio talked about the quarterback “it” factor his first day on the job here. Al Golden never talked about the it factor.
Addazio gets the it factor.
Other than that, I want to see a pass rush and a good offensive line. The schools that win championships in college football are the ones who protect their quarterback and who put the other guy’s quarterback on his ass.
I want to see someone help my main man, Adrian Robinson, collapse the pocket. Maybe it will be Highland’s Sean Daniels, who I have high hopes for, or maybe it will be North Catholic’s Paulhill or maybe it will be Neumann-Goretti’s Kadeem Custis.
I’ve got an idea.
How about everybody just meet at the quarterback?
Most of all, let’s get out a this scrimmage healthy and I’m talking about my favorite future Heisman Trophy winning Owl, specifically.
It is, after all, only practice.

02.02.11
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Groundhog Day for The Gator, The Hooter and The Heater

The Gator, the Hooter and the Heater will all be at SAC Room 200 today.

… Temple commits: QB: Jalen Fitzpatrick, Clinton Granger; OL: Eric Lofton, Jake Quinn; ATH: Daquan Cooper; WR: Malcolm Eugene, Robbie Anderson, Antonio Belt, Tyron Harris, Chris Hutton; RB: Spencer Reid; LB: Praise Martin-Oquike, Raysean Richardson, Nate Smith; DB: Kenny Harper; DE: Brandon Chudnoff, Kadeem Wilson, Cory Johnson; DT: Hershey Walton. …

Fittingly for Temple at least Signing Day is today, falling on Groundhog Day for the first time in five years.
They say if the Groundhog wakes up this morning and sees his shadow, it’s going to be six more weeks of winter.
If not, it’s going to be an early spring.
So it goes with Temple football today.
For the most part, after going through five Temple coaches and nearly 30 years of signing days I’ve devised this foolproof system for telling if today will be a good day.
If you follow the steps of this system and don’t see what you’d like, it will be five more cold and icy years like the Bobby Wallace ones. If you go through the progressions and come  up with positives, it will be five more years of Al Golden.
Or better.

The first part of my “process” is forgetting about the film session after the cocktails because every one of those guys will look like five-star recruits once they get the projectors rolling. It’s either the editing or the cocktails.


As Al was found of saying so many times, it’s all part of the process.
The first part of my “process” is forgetting about the film session after the cocktails because every one of those guys will look like five-star recruits once they get the projectors rolling. It’s either the editing or the cocktails.
Or both.
Go to the Howard Gittis Room (200) at the Student Center today (4 p.m.) and grab one of those bio books of the new recruits.
Thumb to what other schools were recruiting our new players.
If the kid’s top choice other than Temple was Delaware or North Texas State, most likely things are not going to work out for him here.
If the kid picked Temple over BC (Kee-Ayre Griffin) or Pitt (Adrian Robinson) or Penn State (later, with Adam DiMichele), the kid is most likely to be an impact player here.
Or at least a solid contributor.
If you see enough of those level kids, it’s a good class.
I’d advise going to the Student Center today just to meet new head coach Steve Addazio, The Hooter, and Chuck Heater.

One scholarship offer gives me agita but I won’t get into it because he comes from a good and, from what I can see, very well-fed, family


The Gator with (The Hooter and) The Heater, if you will.
I think I’m more pumped about Chuck Heater being here than Addazio or even any of the recruits not named Nate Smith.
Nate Smith, a linebacker and running back from New Jersey, was the best recruit in last year’s class and I’m pretty sure he will be the best recruit in this one. He had to go to Fork Union for a year and that’s all good because it will mean that he’s ready now.
Heater is also the best 57-year-old recruit we’ve ever nabbed. I thought Mark D’Onofrio was a good defensive coordinator, but this guy has credentials that Mark might never get.
No less an authority than Urban Myer called Heater a “Mother Teresa” as in miracle worker and he was that guiding the Utah defense through an unbeaten season and the Colorado defense through an 11-1 season and the Florida defense through two national championships. Everywhere he’s gone, this guy has the magic touch.
If could have gone anywhere, but he chose Temple.
Back to  the scholarships.
One scholarship offer gives me agita but I won’t get into it because he comes from a good and, from what I can see, very well-fed, family. Once he puts on that Owl uniform nobody will root for him harder than me.
We really needed a running back with big-time ability in this class as an insurance policy for a Bernard Pierce injury and unless Bradenton Southeast’s Jared Williams faxes in his LOI in the next few hours, I don’t see one in this class.
Smith might be if they give him a shot to carry the ball, but that’s a coaching staff decision. We seem to have plenty of solid linebackers already on the roster, but no Bernard Pierce-like backup on the other side of the ball.
Maybe The Hooter can whisper that idea into Addazio’s left ear and Heater’s right ear at the same time.
After all, he looks a little like a Groundhog.

Thursday: A look at the bios of the kids who’ve signed on the dotted line.

01.25.11
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Heater gives Owl fans the warm and fuzzies

Chuck Heater
Photo courtesy Univ. of Florida

Over the last four days, I expressed a couple of concerns about Steve Addazio’s new staff.

One is hiring a grad assistant to coach the offensive line. The other is the possibility of rehiring Matt Rhule has offensive coordinator.

Justin Frye being hired as the new OL coach is bit concerning (I would have liked a proven line coach) and the possibility of Rhule being rehired gives me a major case Agata so I’m going to avoid that today.

Today is for the warm and fuzzies, which is about as good a day as any if you look at the temperature on the right side of this page. It was damn near zero yesterday and is trending upward today.

No name better than to supply the warmth than The (Chuck) Heater, Temple’s new defensive coordinator, who is now officially listed in the Temple email directory.

Heater followed Urban Meyer to almost every stop along the Meyer road and Meyer gave him the ultimate compliment when he called Heater “Mother Teresa.”

Mother Teresa as in Miracle Worker.

At age 57, (Heater has) served on coaching staffs that have won two SEC titles and two national titles at UF, a national title at Notre Dame, an undefeated season at Utah, a Rose Bowl and Pac 10 title at Washington, a Big Ten title at Ohio State, and an 11-1 record at Colorado.

He’s a winner.

As one Georgia fan stated on his blog:

“As a recruiting coordinator for the Gators under Meyer, they built a recruiting machine with few peers. Also under Meyer and Heater, the Gators produced defensive back fields with devastating speed and toughness with kids who were coached well enough to begin contributing their freshmen year. He’s a tough as nails coach with high expectations for his kids.”

He will have those same high expectations at Temple. I smell shutout vs. Villanova (at least I hope so), a terrific kick-start to a wonderful season. I don’t see being Temple DC as a step down for Heater because it will be his first sole DC gig (he shared the DC title with Teryl Austin last year at UF) and it will be at a school that has 16 returning starters from teams that went 9-3 and 8-4. If he creates a miracle at Temple, can 11-1 or 12-0 be out of the question?

I don’t think so.

What would make the nation stand up and take notice of Heater, 11-1 at Colorado or 11-1 at Temple? There’s plenty of kindling material here to light Heater’s fire.

That gives me the warm and fuzzies today, on Jan. 25th, when warm and fuzzies are hard to come by.